Ultimate Resistance For Health & Strength

Water is one of the ultimate sources of superior health and strength and that’s a fact no matter how you slice it. You can drink it, it can fit into any container and it can take your fitness to a whole other level. Now I realize some of you either can’t swim or just choose not to go in the ocean/pool/lake for other reasons, that doesn’t mean you can’t imitate it though. For those who do swim know what its like to feel different, being in a different state of mind and clarity.

Many athletes use swimming as a conditioning tool, hell it’s an Olympic sport and for good reasons. I believe out of all the Olympic & Pro swimmers there is one swimmer who isn’t an Olympian at all but should’ve been took swimming to a level that will never be matched and that’s the late Jack Lalanne. He not only made swimming an art form but he took it to extremes an extreme few will ever attempt and most likely can never surpass good old Jack. More then half of his recorded feats had something to do with swimming. Whether being shackled and had to pull boats from Fisherman’s Wharf or just doing a few laps from his pool outside his house, Jack made swimming look awesome period.

Another great swimmer who took it to another level was fitness and nutrition pioneer Paul Bragg. Although a controversial figure in the fitness industry he got people into eating healthy, training and gave great prominence to swimming. He was one of the first known polar bears in the early 20^th century with another fitness pioneer Bernarr MacFadden. Bragg, Macfadden and others would swim the icy cold east coast oceans in New York during the winter because it gave them a new meaning to the term Nerve Force or Chi Strength. It made them tough mentally as it takes a lot of grapefruits to do that.

These 2 men are just bits and pieces of what swimming can do for you and how it can increase your strength, health and fitness. Now for practical use you don’t need to be shackled or swim in icy oceans but you can however swim laps, try to sprint, increase your lung power and move your joints the way they were made for. Swimming gives you all the resistance you need for an awesome and invigorating workout. When it comes to health, swimming can increase your mental clarity, make you breathe harder then just about anything else and it puts you in a state of mind that just makes everything seem unbelievable and beautiful.

If you have access to a pool or can go to the lake or ocean do it as often as possible. For me lately I love jumping into the pool after a hard workout and do a few laps, run around and have fun then soak in the hot tub to relax and recover. It is the perfect ending to a workout. Have fun and make swimming apart of your program whether a few times a week or everyday do it for fun not a necessity.

Bodyweight Exercises: Putting The "Fun" In Functional Strength!!!

In many circles around the web you'll hear quite a few people giving Bodyweight Exercises a bad rap and thats just not right on so many levels. First off whoever thinks bodyweight sucks is their business and their opinion but lets get the facts straight here. This type of training has given many people the world over an awesome body, great strength, surreal flexibility and insane endurance. I say this as a point with the right amount of training. Am I saying weight lifting sucks? Hell no man I just prefer bodyweight because it saves me money, time and I can do it anywhere I want.

The real keys to having a solid program is using your imagination, being creative, find goals and mastering basic exercises. Just like weight lifting, work the basics and soon enough you'll find thats all you need to build a solid foundation for sheer strength, muscle-building and all the good stuff that comes with them. It does piss me off sometimes when these morons don't know the real side of a good solid training program. Example would be some people think that bodyweight training is only good for endurance and doesn't build muscle or strength but it can give you flexibility. Ok in some cases they're right it does build flexibility and can give you great stamina but heres a kicker here folks. For those that don't know i'm 5'10 and 242 lbs. My main training is pretty much all bodyweight and so I have built strength from this type of training um lets see....

I can hold a handstand on the wall for more then a minute

I have Deadlifted nearly 400 lbs. without almost any training on it in the last 5-6 years

Easily can press a 88lb. Kettlebell

Bend Steel short and long

Held a 125 lb. Dumbbell w/ a 2 inch thick handle for 10sec.

I think I've made my point here. Will this type of training do the same for everyone like it did for me? No theres no way not because i'm dissing your abilities its because I chose to try these things and my structure is different then others. That shouldn't mean you can't take a shot at them or whatever you want to do but with a good structure and leverage with your body-to-weight ratio you'd be surprised how strong you can get. So I really don't give a flying you know what about people who say you can't be strong on this type of training.

Man I sound like an a**hole right now don't you think? Sorry guys I tend to do that every now and then. Back to why it puts the "Fun" in Functional Strength. Its fun in my opinion cause you get to be free to do what you want for exercise. When they say the best things in life are free I'd put exercise right near the top of the list in my opinion. You get to be creative and try things at different angles and for the most part you're always isolating muscles.

Working the whole body as a unit is far better then doing a ton of other exercises for specific muscles. When you work the body as One, you're putting on more muscle, burning more fat and your muscular strength & endurance go through the roof. It also saves you time from going to the gym and training in your own home, how many people at the gym can say they trained while they played video games or trained while commercials are going instead of their favorite tv show or better yet train with the music they want to listen to with no one around. That's one reason why I find Bodyweight Exercises fun.

I feel that when Jack Lalanne pioneered his fitness tv show way back in the 50's and 60's he wanted you to get up and start your day with a smile, laughing and feeling good like you were a little kid. He was the guy in my opinion that made exercise fun and enjoyable instead of being hardcore and rough and making you feel that exercise is just horrible. He wasn't just a pioneer in the fitness industry, he was also one of the most intelligent men of his generation because he not only made you bust your ass but you enjoyed it and kept coming back for more with a smile and a thirst for life. That was his true genius and no one should ever forget that.

One of my favorite forms of bodyweight training is being out in the wild and being an animal that is strong, powerful and graceful. This is where another form of freedom comes into play. You don't feel like working out but playing and having fun moving around. Theres something for everyone that can do bodyweight exercises, you can be 10 or 100 and still find a way to do great exercise to keep you young, vibrant and healthy.

Back in the early eras of Physical Culture of the 20th Century, many strongmen on the vaudville circuit, circuses and competitions actually did Bodyweight Training to help gain an advantage for what they did as performers. Many of them were wrestlers, boxers, gymnasts, acrobats and just flat out very powerful men. Otto Arco for example was a superior acrobat who can not only do great hand balancing feats but was one of the first of three men to lift double-bodyweight overhead in the clean and press or jerk if I said that right. John Grimek who has been known as the greatest bodybuilder in the non-steroid era of the sport who can vouch for bodyweight exercises as part of a token of his successful career as a bodybuilder and Olympic Weightlifter. Those 2 were examples of among many others that have used bodyweight with sucessful results.

Heres one final thing about why bodyweight exercises are fun to do for functional strength and that's being able to play with your kids. Children start the first few years of their lives doing bodyweight exercises, whether they're running, jumping, playing on the monkey bars or climbing up to go down the slides they're using nothing but they're own Bodyweight and some of them are very strong for how small they are. Makes you think doesn't it? When you learn to train like a child it can give you a whole different prespective about training. As adults we may not have the same energy as a young child but we can adapt and learn to enjoy being there and playing with them. When you train as a family, you create a certain bond and learning from each other. I want to be able to do that with my own kids one day and be able to have fun with them.

If you're looking for some awesome courses on Bodyweight Exercises then look no further then below.........

Gymnastic Abs

Animal Kingdom Conditioning

Advanced Bridging

Body Sculpting Bodyweight Exercises For Women

Pain Killers

Gymnastic Handstands

Ultimate Guide To Handstand Push-ups

Hand Balancing Mastery Course

Animal Kingdom Conditioning 2: Call Of The Wild

Wild Animal Fitness For Kids

Ultimate Bodyweight Conditioning-Squats

Ultimate Bodyweight Conditioning-Push-ups

The Passing Of A Legend!!!!!!

One of the greatest human beings and physical culturists of all-time passed away yesterday Jack Lalanne. He personified the meaning of physical fitness and helped more people then just about anyone in history. His endurance was unmatched and took feats of strength to a whole new level. Every year on his b-day starting at age 40 he did endurance feats that not only were surreal but you pretty much had to be there for it to be believeable. He was one of my biggest influences in the last 14 years of training. At a young age he turned his life around and became a pioneer in the fitness industry and became the first man to jumpstart fitness on television from the late 50's to the mid 70's and it was still to this day the longest running fitness show in television history. His books and videos changed so many lives I think we all lost count and whenever you mention great bodybuilders Jack has to be near the top of the list. He had one of the best physiques of all-time. Nobody can say Jack about his undeniable boundless energy and ever enduring smile apon others. Some of his most memorable quotes are inriched into the brains of millions and should be in the library of congress. May he RIP and lets never forget who made fitness an art.

Hand Balancing & The Power Of Inverted Training

However you look at it Handbalancing is by far one of the most difficult methods of self mastery over the human body. When you're upside down it seems like a whole different world and its mysterious and very unusual feeling of not always knowing whats going to happen or how you are suppose to stay up. For the most part it takes awareness and strength to a whole new level and with enough practice you can do things that not only will it amaze people but you will have control over your body not many people in the world can do.

To get a glimpse of modern hand balancing take a look at the men and women of gymnastics or Circ De Solei, the requirement for their sport/profession is to be master hand balancers because of a lot of the stunts require to be on the hands. It is amazing and breathtaking to see some of the best athletes at what they do. I've seen a gymnastic event and seen A Mid-Summer Nightmare which had acts of Hand balancing and tumbling and martial arts and just about every time I saw a scene I was taken back by it by how it it just engulfs your mind on how these people are so strong and coordinated they are. Now not too many of us in our adult years have the luxery of joinging a gymnastics class and becoming a good hand balancer/gymnast so is there a betterr way to learn?

As a matter of fact there is and one guy that I know of has some of the best knowledge on Hand Balancing there is. He is a good friend of mine named Logan Christopher. His background is on Gymnastics, Old-time Strongman, Kettle Bell Instructor, Personal Trainer and is on his way to being one of the strongest men in the world for the thing he performs. I've trained with him and this is no joke he's one of the strongest guys I've ever met and seen him hold some pretty awesome handstands. So its safe to say this guy knows his stuff and anything he just about puts out is a gold star in my book.

Not only is Logan promoting the Art Of Hand Balancing he's helping spread the word about it as some of the best Physical Culturists in the world did many moons ago back in the days of Vaudville and Circus Acts of the early 20th Century. Some of the biggest names did Hand Balancing in their training. Men like Otto Arco, Maxick, Sig Klein, Bob Jones, John Davis, John Grimek, Bert Azzerati, George Hackenschmidt and believe it or not the living legend Jack Lalanne. All these men have done some form of hand balancing and were some of the strongest men in the world before the use of steroids and performance enhancing drugs. That should give you a clear idea of what you can accomplish with pure will, practice, patience and amazing power.

I'm not a Hand Balancing expert but I can tell you from my own experiences its hard and not easy at all (redundent I know) but I have held a handstand for a period of time thats pretty good for a guy my size at well over 235 pounds. So whether you're big, small or inbetween, this form of training can teach you what it truely means to have control over your own body. Even holding a position is pretty darn impressive but when you get to walking on your hands or doing push-ups thats in the realm of dreams and it can be yours if you practice it. Check out Legendary Strength or Lost Art Of Hand baancing websites on the right side of the screen and learn the Lost Art Of Hand Balancing and believe me they are worth every penny many times over.

Legendary Strength

Lost Art Of Hand Balancing